Dish Network to unveil streaming video service Friday

Dish Network has invited media to an event called “A Stream Come True” in San Francisco on Friday where the company is expected to announce pricing and other details for a streaming video service. The new service will use technology acquired from their recent purchase of Blockbuster earlier this year.

Dish purchased the former video rental king for $228 million in cash (after adjustments) at a bankruptcy auction in April 2011. Blockbuster was once the world's largest video chain with a market cap of more than $5 billion at its peak in 2002. It started to fall apart after pressure from mail-order and digital competitors such as Netflix.

A Dish streaming service couldn’t come at a better time as competitor Netflix recently announced that they were moving forward with plans to split their business in two, by offering streaming services only at Netflix.com and renaming their DVD-by-mail service to Qwikster.

Netflix caught a lot of flak from unhappy customers a few months ago when the split was first announced. A 60% price hike accompanied the announcement for subscribers of both services, which resulted in nearly 1 million cancellations. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings acknowledged the communication mistake and publically apologized over the weekend.

Earlier this month it was reported that Netflix had lost their contract with Starz and content would be pulled from the streaming platform on February 28, 2012.

Dish could come out smelling like a rose if they are able to undercut the current Netflix streaming price of $7.99. The only concern is that the company has only had five months to amass a streaming catalog, although Dish promises to unveil “the most comprehensive home entertainment package ever.”